First off, let me correct the kit’s most glaring error:
Labeling the kit as “USS Eagle”. This is, of course, a model of the US Coast
Guard Cutter Eagle—the box should say “USCGC EAGLE”. (To Coast Guardsmen,
this is a gaffe as bad as calling a US Marine fighter an “Army plane”.

The Eagle was one of five sister ships, built by Nazi
Germany in the mid 1930s. The Horst Wessel served as a training ship for
the German Navy before the war, and then was used as a transport in the Baltic
during the war. Seized as a war prize at the end of the war, the US Coast Guard
christened her “Eagle”, and with a mixed crew of USCG and German personnel,
sailed her to the US in 1946.

Since 1946, Eagle has served as the training ship
for the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT. (The USCG Academy is similar
in many ways to the US Naval Academy, but with a student body about one fourth
the size.) Every Academy cadet will spend at least 6 weeks at sea during
summer training cruises aboard Eagle. (I was lucky enough to spend a total of
15 weeks aboard Eagle during my 4 years at the Academy.)

The Eagle has a riveted steel hull, with welded
steel masts and yards. The steel decks are covered with a layer of teak
planking. The standing rigging is wire rope, while the running rigging is the
traditional rope. Eagle is rigged as a bark (or barque), which means
she has square sails on the fore and main masts, but only fore-and-aft sails on
the mizzen. (A “ship rigged” vessel would have square sails on all masts.)

In the following 55 years, some changes have taken place.
The original boat stowage amidships has been replaced with stowage for modern
inflatable life rafts. An enclosed pilothouse was added at the front of the
bridge, to protect the radar, radios, and other electronics from the weather.
In German service, the mizzen’s large spanker sail was two piece, to make it
easier to handle. It was later changed to one large sail. In the last ten
years or so, the sail has been changed back to the two piece sail. (The kit has
the two-piece sail.) Also added in the 1970s were davits with standard USCG 26
foot motor surf boats (MSBs), replacing the oar-powered boats carried on the
quarterdeck. In 1967, the
Coast Guard added the “Coast Guard” and red and blue stripes to the hulls of all
cutters, except Eagle. Eagle added these markings in 1976.

THE
KIT

I understand that this model was originally released as an
Imai kit, and was a waterline model. Imai had a series of modern tall ships in
1/350 scale, all waterline models. Minicraft later acquired the molds, and
re-released a number of ships from the line. When the kit was released,
Minicraft made three improvements: (1) Added a separate lower hull molding, (2)
Included modern USCG decals, and (3) cut the retail price almost in half. When
this kit first appeared on the shelves of my local hobby shop in 1997, you could
sometimes still find the Imai waterline version of the kit for $20. The
Minicraft version of the kit (in the box with the wrong name, and an optional
full hull) sold for $10.

The model basically represents the Eagle as she
appears today, which makes it the best of the Eagle kits, IMO. Revell
produced a kit in 1/253 scale of Eagle, that has been around since the
mid 1950s. The Revell kit is a model of Eagle from that era, though I
suspect it isn’t totally accurate for that time period either. The Revell kit
does not include a pilothouse, has the infamous molded on railings. In the
early 1980s, Revell released the kit with modern USCG markings (“COAST GUARD”
and the USCG stripe.)

Kit Parts:

The kit consists of about 65 plastic molded parts, molded
in various colors. Also included are two sheets of vacuum-formed sails.
Portholes are a little oversize, perhaps, and are molded as shallow holes. They
are round, with good edges, and in a straight line.

The Eagle has a couple of pronounced raised rubrails along
the hull, and these are reproduced in the model’s upper hull. The lower hull
has no molded detail at all, but that is probably better than overdone plating
lines as found in some kits in this scale.

My copy of the kit has fairly clean moldings— no signs of
mold mis-alignment, and very little flash. The model is molded in several
colors, to minimize painting. The hull and decks are in white, with the masts
and spars in a medium brown. The lower hull is molded in bright green. There
is several feet of a fine brown thread for use in rigging. A display base with
nice wood grain is molded in black, and there are a pair of chrome pedestals to
go with it.

Details, details:

The decks have fine recessed lines engraved to simulate
the planking. The inclined ladders (stairways, to you land lubbers) are molded
as part of the main deck. The yards have the right overall shape, but are a
little over scale. (The topmasts and upper yards would be too fragile if molded
in scale, I suspect.)

There are no railings molded in, which is a good move in
this scale. Generic 3-bar photo-etch railings could be used to add this
detail. I estimate you’d need about 16 inches of railing material. There
also are no ratlines included in the kit—this is another area where photo-etched
brass would be a good solution.

Probably the worst detail of the model is the boats and
davits. Eagle carries 26 foot long motor surfboats, the same boat used on all
larger USCG Cutters. The kit’s boats look more like a ship’s longboat from the
1800s. Also, the davits are simple “J” davits, which is completely wrong as
well. Nobody makes an MSB in this (or any) scale, so scratch-building is the
only way to get an accurate boat. If you don’t want to scratchbuild, then I’d
suggest going with a 26 foot USN motor whaleboat. Remove the canvas screens,
make the ends a little more blunt with some putty, and use standard Navy
destroyer-type davits, and you’ve made a big improvement.

Instructions:

The instructions are copyrighted 1997. There are nine
major assembly steps. The instructions are primarily pictorial, with a few
captions in English. There is very limited rigging instructions- only major
elements of the standing rigging are included.

The use of the light plastic vacuum formed sails is the
optional last step, but there is no running rigging instructions at all. Simple
representations of the sheets for the fore-and-aft sails and braces for the
square sails are shown in the photos of the completed model.

The only color information is a single statement: “Paint
decks tan. See box photos for detail colors.” The box sides have four color
photos of the model to show colors and decal placement. Too bad the colors used
in the photos are wrong in a couple of key areas. For example, the lower hull
should be anti-fouling red, not green. The masts and yards should be USCG
“spar” in color, not brown. The deck fittings should be spar incolor, not red
or orange.

Decals:

The kit provides decals for the modern version of the
Eagle, as shown on the box. They consist of the hull stripes and “Coast Guard”
lettering, and the ship’s name for the the stern. The decals look pretty good,
but maybe a bit thick. The different colors are properly registered. The USCG
Shield is part of the red stripe, and is the worst looking of the lot. Still,
it isn’t bad—it is only 3/16 of an inch in size, and reminds me of the
not-too-detailed squadron badges you get in many airplane kits. I’m sure that
an aftermarket decal outfit could do a better job here, but what are the chances
such a sheet will ever be produced?

CONCLUSIONS

Recommended. Minicraft’s 1/350 scale series of tall ships
are nice little models. There’s nothing more complicated than a tall ship, and
these kits do a decent job of capturing the essence of them in a common scale.
The fact that they are in 1/350 scale means that there are warship detail parts,
such as railings and ladders, to dress them up if desired. (At 295 feet LOA,
Eagle is about the size of a Destroyer Escort.) I only wish that someone would
do a generic tall ship detail set, with ratlines and other rigging pieces……

This particular kit is a good representation of Eagle as
she appears today, more detailed than the 1/600 scale Heller kit, and much more
accurate than the old Revell molding. The kit’s main shortcoming is the poor
rigging and painting instructions, which can be addressed by looking at some
photos.